Visions.

It has been a year since my family was sent through a literal hell trying to defend the life of the child we all love so dearly. I walked through the glass doors into the kitchen and could hear my family sitting in the living room talking. Bella's father Charlie was over, as had become a habit for him over the last year. He was talking to my father Carlisle about his recent bout of heart burn. Carlisle is a doctor at the local hospital here in Forks, Washington. He is the most compassionate person I've ever met. My mother, Esme, reminds me so much of the mothers I've seen on television so often. She is caring, sweet, funny, and protective over her adoptive children. I knew from the first moment I saw them I would one day be their child. Of course they already had three other children: Edward, Rosalie and Emmett. Edward and I are close, really close, he understands me and watches over me like a big brother ought to. Rosalie and I never really got each other, she comes from a well to do family and sometimes I think she only thinks of herself..but I love her. I love my family deeply, after all I can't remember my real family; my sister Cynthia and my parents who I lived with until I was placed ina mental hospital.

I snapped out of my trance when heard the buzzing voices of my sister Bella and my brother Edward as the discussed their plans for the first birthday of their beautiful daughter Reneeseme, who we all affectionately call Nessie. She was an unique child, born to a mortal mother and immortal father and is herself neither totally mortal nor totally immortal. Her birth sparked the birth of my sister into our world, something she had pinned for since falling for my brother Edward. Nessie was setting in the lap of her uncle Jacob, a shape-shifter who has imprinted on the daughter of the love of his life. Despite his hatred for our kind, Jacob has slowly become a part of the family and seems to live here more than at his home on the Quileute reservation. Jacob's friend Seth sat in the corner listening to his I-pod; Seth was the most comfortable of our Quileute friends.

Finally there were my brother Emmett and my sister Rosalie; they were discussing the condition of Emmett's Jeep. We all knew this day was coming; the damn thing was put through so much in our short time in Forks that it was slowly dying. Rose, a very accomplished mechanic, couldn't even revive the beast and gave it over to Jacob to try and fix; he too failed. This was the time Rose had chosen to break the news to her beloved husband and soul mate. It was like watching a doctor comforting a loved one while telling them that despite best efforts their beloved was going to die. Emmett took it better than I thought he would, then again I'm only as accurate as one's own will to follow the path they have chosen. I knew Rose already bought a new car of Emmett; it was sitting in the garage in the back corner. The day she bought the Hummer she had asked me to tag along in order to make it less conspicuous as to what she had planned. I could already tell that Emmett was going to flip when he saw the thing; he would love it.

That brings us to my dear Jasper, who was sitting on the steps waiting for me to return from my solo hunting trip. I had insisted on this trip since today marks my anniversary; it was seventy years ago today that I first awoke as a vampire. Jasper was the one vision I've had that has remained constant without ever wavering. When we first met in a little café in a suburb of Chicago he had just broken free from his sire Maria. Together they had ruled the southern part of Texas and northern part of Mexico since he was created in the 1860's. He sat patiently as I walked up to him, giving him a kiss and then sitting next time him, interlocking our hands. As we sat there just holding hands, the doorbell rang and I got up to answer it. It was unusual for our family to receive guests and it was rare for me not to have a warning at least a week in advance. I opened the door and there stood a delivery man.

He asked, "Is Alice Cullen home."

"Yes, I am her." I replied quickly.

"This is for you." He said while handing me a large box.

"Thanks." I said with the most appealing smile a vampire could possibly muster.

I went back to my seat next to Jasper to open the large box; I didn't know who would be sending me something. I opened it to find a large statue of the Greek god Apollo, and a card. The card read:

To Alice, you are the best sister I could ever have hoped for, Happy Birthday.-Bella.

I was stunned, Jasper sat with a huge grin on his face when he finally said something I was ready to burn a hole in him with my glare.

"I'm sorry honey, I couldn't say anything, and Bella would have killed me." Jasper quickly let out.

"BELLA!" I yelled.

"Yes Alice." She appeared and replied.

A huge smile was on my face before I could scowl at her for sending me a gift without letting on so that I could be forewarned. "Thank you Bella, this is the best gift. I love you more than you will ever know." Is all I could say at this point.

"I knew you would like it, after all he is the god of prophecy." Bella replied with a smirk.

"What is all the screaming about down here Alice?" Esme said as she walked down the stairs.

"Sorry Esme, I was just surprised by Bella's present to me." I quickly apologized.

"It's okay dear." Esme said as she produced a small black box.

I opened the box to reveal a pair of three carrot diamond earnings. The diamonds are set on fourteen carrot white gold. I smiled and thanked Esme after she said it was from her, Carlisle, Rosalie, and Emmett. I was trying to find in my mind the gift that Jasper had gotten me before I heard Edward call to me, "Don't try, Bella found a way to block your visions and has protected us until you our gifts."

I suddenly was upset by the leap Bella made in her gift. She was a shield, which in supernatural terms means that she can block the extra sensory powers of other beings. Originally it was believed she only had the power to block mental powers, not those related strictly to the body. But despite my anger I sat patiently for Jasper to finally reveal his gift so that Bella would drop her shield and I could be able to see the futures of all my family. As I expected, it would be the most eloquent gift anyone could ever give me. Jasper had run to the room while I was busy trying to yell at Bella, receiving a gift from Esme and being befuddled by Bella's new powers. He returned quietly with a huge bouquet of roses of all varieties. Surely as soon as he handed me the flowers that I was freed from Bella's shield but I quickly wished that she had kept the shield up.

I fell into a trance with the image of a small young woman sitting against a white, padded wall. The girl had her hands around her knees and her head between her legs, obviously crying. I saw two doctors walk in on her, both beautiful beyond all words and pale beyond what was humanly possible. I immediately identified them as vampires, but whether they were like Carlisle was hard to see. I did notice though that the vampires were dressed wearing older clothes, something that would have been worn in the 1920's. Edward saw my vision as it played in my head before me and was in front of me before I could blink away the images.

"What is it, Alice." Jasper inquired.

"I don't…I don't know." I muttered, confused.

"It was you, Alice, as a human. But who were the two doctors?" Edward informed everyone.

"I don't know, I don't remember anything from my time as a human, you know that Edward." I responded as though I were about to cry.

"Maybe it isn't a vision of the present, maybe it's a memory of the past." Bella suggested, "Since we found out about your making from James, what all have you found out?"

"You know that Bella, I know I had a sister and parents and I know the name of the hospital." I answered her question. At this point I was surrounded by everyone except Nessie and Jacob. Carlisle was standing over me, worried about my vision of my past. The look on his face was that of a man in thought; I knew he was contemplating possibilities for figuring this mystery out.

"This second doctor, we have to figure out who he is and why now you are having visions about him." Carlisle decided.

"Does he have any identifying marks, Alice?" Emmett inquired.

"No, not that I could tell, the vision is too blurry. Almost as if a decision still needs to be made in order to make it completely clear."

"Then we must figure out who he is." Carlisle instructed, "I think it would be best if you travel to the hospital and find out more information about your stay and the doctors who cared for you."

I assumed from his tone of voice that he was scared that some how my past was going to be coming to visit our family in the very near future. Carlisle turned toward Edward and Bella and asked if she would be up for making the trip with me. Her new powers would be helpful in protecting me against any enemies who might be waiting for me. I was slightly relieved that Carlisle asked Bella to accompany me, since her transformation into a vampire last year things hadn't been as good between us as they were before. I hoped our trip together across country would give us time to rekindle the friendship that was still very much alive, although starting to waver. I grant that this is partially my fault, as it was my decision to leave Forks last year in hopes of finding more like Reneeseme. Of all the people I could hurt, aside from Jasper, Bella was the most crushed by my departure. While she had Edward, her transformation would have been much easier had I, her best friend, been there for her. Instead I left her with my sister Rose, who has never been shy about her ill feelings for Bella.

My thoughts returned to the present, and the fact that while I was gaining Bella for my trip west, I would be without Jasper. I was worried about Jasper's safety as I went out to discover my past. "Don't worry about him, he and I will do what we can to help from here." Edward assured me. This made me feel a little bit better, knowing that Edward and Jasper would be doing what they could to assist in my discovery and at the same time could watch out for each other.

"Very well, it is decided, Bella and Alice will leave tonight for the hospital. Jasper and Edward will conduct an investigation form here using whatever available resources we have. The rest of us will carry on as normal. If anyone asks about Bella, we will tell them that Alice has taken her to Atlanta for a follow up with the CDC." Carlisle sounded so much like a military commander preparing us for yet another battle. Had this been our first battle I would have been frightened by his tone, but in fact this seemed to be the millionth battle we faced ever since moving back to Forks. The first two years here had seemed so bland, and then out of no where Chief Swan's daughter Bella came to visit. After her arrival we were thrust into battle after battle, though none of us wished to even consider blaming it on Bella because we knew as a human it was beyond her control to manipulate events and people.

The decision for Bella and I to leave in the night allowed me time to spend with Jasper. With eight hours to spare, I would be able to spend it entirely with Jazz and hopefully leave any notice of possible dangers with him. I noticed very little in my visions, aside from weather conditions. At the same time I was able to spend time with the vision I had earlier, trying to uncover any more possible clues about who the mysterious second vampire was and how he was connected to me. I tried to visualize the trip as much as possible, trying to find any problems that Bella and I would encounter on our journey. All I could see was the weather patterns for all the major cities we would pass through, and that left me with an ill feeling in my stomach. Thankfully I had Jazz there to keep me calm, just knowing he had the power to settle my anxiety helped quite a lot. It was unsettling that all I could see was the weather for our trip, and not any of the people or events we might encounter. At first I assumed it was because these things had yet to be decided, but then I realized that it was due an outside influence. It had nothing to do with the decisions Bella and I had not yet made, but rather the decisions someone unseen had not yet made. For all I could tell there were as few as one and as many as a thousand people and vampires who were going to play into our trip.

Instead of looking into the trip, I looked for any trouble that the family would encounter during our time away. The first thing I noticed was an unexpected visit by Angela and Ben, two of our friends from high school. They were clearly worried about Bella's condition, as anyone other than her father was concerned she was still sick with an unknown Brazilian illness. Angela became a good friend to Bella and I in the last couple of weeks of our senior year. She was a brilliant smart and funny girl to be around. She went off to the University of Washington with her boyfriend Ben, and they were coming home for the weekend. Thankfully, Jacob would spend his time at his house or Charlie's during our travels and so I was able to clearly see the future events. I saw Charlie, but I wasn't sure what to make of his actions. I knew he was going to call Renee but I wasn't positive as to why he was making the call. All I knew is that he had determined to call her this weekend, and an ill feeling in my stomach led me to believe it might concern Bella. Renee's ignorance about her daughter's sudden recovery had allowed Bella some normalcy in her life. Unlike most newborns, Bella had turned out to be quite controlled and that allowed her to be around humans such as her father. But her mother, her mother she felt would be able to see right through the charade that her father willingly turned a blind eye towards. I kept the vision to myself, if for no other reason than to not bother people for something that might just be trivial. After all, I had seen Charlie make calls to Renee a hundred times in the past year to give her status reports on Bella's condition. He had played along wonderfully so as not to disturb the delicate life Bella still lived through.

When it was finally time to head out, we were delayed an hour by an unexpected visit from Bella's father Charlie. She was able to entertain him and then get him to leave within one hour, but only after she had Edward convince Jacob to take Nessie and spend the night over at Charlie's house. Charlie had taken the news of Bella's strange recovering with relative ease. He was more interested in the fact he had a baby granddaughter, granted at one year of age she already looked like she was a five year old. She spoke more now than she ever did, which Bella had convinced her it was better so that she would be able to fit in with other children. Charlie fell in love with his granddaughter and usually came over to visit only her, and very little of Bella. Charlie's next concern was to convince Bella and Edward to register Reneesme for kindgarten. But finally we were able to leave and Rose offered to let us borrow her new BMW because she had it specially ordered with reflective windows, perfect for whenever it was necessary to leave the safety of Forks near constant cover of clouds. On our way out of town we decided to stop and fill up the tank, not that it was completely empty but I knew that for at least the next one-hundred miles we were going to be under constant sunlight. While at the station we ran into Angela and Ben, I wasn't as surprised as I ought to have been considering I had only seen them heading to the house; then again I hadn't planned on stopping for gas in Forks. Being that Forks only has one gas station meant that this was inevitable, and Bella played her part beautifully, Angela and Ben left without any hint of a change. We were further lucky that Bella's eyes had changed from the crimson color all newborns have to a wonderful shade of milk chocolate brown in a matter of five months. I decided to let Bella drive so that I could have more time to devote to observing our future.